The technology detailed herein is applicable to all manner of auctions. The four most familiar styles of auction are the ascending-bid auction (also called the English auction), the descending-bid auction (also called the Dutch auction), the first-price sealed-bid auction, and the second-price sealed bid auction (also called the Vickrey auction). However, the present concepts are applicable in all types of auction arrangements, including those detailed in the following patent publications: U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,794,207, 6,216,114, 6,466,917, 6,606,607, 6,671,674, 6,892,186, 6,985,885, 7,162,446, 20040128224, 20050228736, and 20050234806.
This technology is applicable in traditional live auctions, and in on-line auctions like EBay. (Such auctions are familiar, e.g., in the context of selling collectibles, real estate, commodities, thoroughbred horses and farm stock, used automobiles, timber, etc.) Moreover, this technology is applicable in automated auctions, and in auctions that are employed as mediation processes to arbitrate entitlement to limited resources. (Such auctions include automatically allocating dynamic packet bandwidth assignments, trading electricity, allocating pollution rights, selling debt instruments and financial securities, etc.) Such principles can similarly be included in simultaneous multiple-round auctions of the sort employed by the US Federal Communications Commission in their spectrum auctions, as well as in other combinatorial auctions.
Moreover, the principles herein can be applied to traditional auctioneer-seller auctions (in which one or more sellers seek a highest price for goods or services from bidders who wish to obtain same), and in procurement, auctioneer-buyer auctions (in which one or more buyers seek a lowest price for goods/services from bidders who wish to provide same). Still further, the detailed arrangements are applicable both in private auctions (where the identities of the bidders are hidden) and in public auctions.